Second-gen gaming tablet from Archos

Hot on the heels of a retailer leak last week, Archos has today officially announced the GamePad 2 — its second attempt at an Android-powered handheld gaming device. Like its predecessor, the new GamePad features a 7-inch display, but the resolution's been upped to 1280x800 pixels. Similarly, it's now packing a 1.6GHz quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM, which should improve performance and multitasking capabilities. Storage-wise, you're looking at 16 and 32GB options with microSD support for up to 64GB cards. Apps to SD support is included too, allowing you to push some apps to external storage. And it's running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean with the full complement of Google apps.

Archos is also touting a new version of its Game Mapping tool, which lets gamers map any area of the screen to one of the physical buttons, allowing compatibility even with games that don't natively support hardware controls. And to sweeten the deal it's throwing in full complete versions of Gameloft's Asphalt 8: Airborne and Modern Combat 4: Zero Hour, fully optimized for use with gamepad controls.

The Archos GamePad 2 will be available from the end of the month, priced at €179.99.

I don't understand the appeal for Android game consoles. Good console - level games are so rare - the kind of games that this tablet is intended for. Those that want quality games would go to the PSvita. There just isn't enough incentive for most users to buy anything Android for gaming purpose.

Easy: Customers that don't want to have to pay $30 - $40 per game but aren't satisfied with the on-screen controls with a standard Android tablet.

I bought a Nexus 7 for my five-year old in lieu of a 3DS. It was a no-brainer. He has access to hundreds of games and apps and new ones are either free or cheap and there are no cartridges to futz with. Having built-in controls would make it even more compelling.

I totally agree. My 4 year old has my old PSP and my Nexus 7 (2012) to play with and he ALWAYS ends up playing the N7 more. Since I've already bought the Sonic games (which he LOVES) on Android, he can play them all of them on this device with tactile controls. I don't need to re-buy all of the games on another platform.

Would be really interested in a review of this device in the near future.

This is like a cut-price Nvidia Shield - the only real appeal I see for this device is for emulation fans (or us older folk) - essentially a portable NES, SNES, Megadrive, Neo-Geo, GB, GBA and PS1 - that external SD would be useful to store all the roms.

Yeah no. The P in PSVita stands for Portable. 7 inches is way too big for a portable gaming console (and I find my Vita already big enough).
They could create a new segment with bigger screen if there is a market for that.

Root is needed if you want to breach Android framework security to create a virtual mount (the device thinks the internal and external storage are one storage space).

Official apps2sd only moves the apk file, so this would mean apps2sd is of little help for newer games. Case in point, the device ships with two Gameloft games that total 4gb. This means the 8gb model will have about 2GB free and 9GB for the 16GB model. They should have went 16gb/32gb instead.

Visually it looks stunning. Nvidia Shield is way too bulky in comparison to this. My only gripe is that they didn't future proof it. They should have gone for a Full HD screen & exynos 5 octa core processor. PS Vita is a lost product. Games with good graphics are coming on Droid & ios. This is the future for portable gaming.

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